DJAftershock

THE MOST DISAPPOINTING GAME EVER. The first warning sign is that the people who made Ride and Shred came back to develop this. The second warning sign is that review copies were not distributed until the very day of release. The third warning sign is it has a SEVERAL GIGABYTE PATCH THAT IS REQUIRED FOR 80% OF THE GAME TO ACTUALLY WORK. Seriously, if you don't install a 5gig patch, you're left with a tutorial and the park editor. Woe is anyone with a slow internet connection. You ain't skating today, son. Okay, so the actual game is terrible. The controls are ripped straight from THPSHD, except they're somehow LESS responsive than a game on PS3/360 which was, in turn, less responsive than a game on the PS2. The soundtrack is pretty bad, but it's not "kill me please" bad. I mean, it has SOME punk in it, but it's a lot more poppy than before. What happened to the days of Bad Religion, Rage Against the Machine and Motorhead? The game is embarrassingly ugly. I don't get why, but the teaser video had pretty mediocre graphics and they're somehow worse in the retail version. Textures take several centuries to load, it can't decide whether it wants to be 30 frames a second or FOUR frames a second, the UI looks like it was made as a high schooler's Unity project. I stopped playing after about an hour. I really cannot stand this game. According to people who suffered through the entire thing, it doesn't get better. Through the glitches and server issues, the horrible graphics and the dull soundtrack, DO. NOT. BUY. THIS. GAME.

Aside from Undertale, I think this is the only game ever made and that ever will be made I'll give a 10/10. I can literally say NOTHING bad about it. This game is completely addictive and will have you going back to those Peak Runs, trying to better your high scores. It looks FANTASTIC for a 2003 game and it doesn't look half-bad today, and the soundtrack remains one of the best licensed soundtracks ever (if bettered by anything, MAYBE THPS3 and that's about it) with fantastic tracks like Yellowcard's Way Away, Placebo's The Bitter End, and even a remix of The Faint's Glass Danse. The controls are tight and your uber tricks can be customized to your liking. The boards and equipment you choose, unlike SSX Tricky, do not effect your stats. There are some people who like that and some who don't. I'm fine with it as I only ever chose based on how they look anyway. Overall, it's hard to sum up SSX. Maybe screaming "M-M-M-M-MONSTER TRICK" repeatedly will do it?

Oh, dear, I gave a game that's about CANCER a 4/10. Colour me an evil monster. I really wish I could give this game a big score, but this just isn't an experience worth going through. If this story was made into some sort of hour-long documentary, I would've watched and loved it. The reason this game gets a 4 and not lower is that I really did feel for the characters of the story (and it honestly broke my heart when I learned it was a true one) and I wanted to know more about it. But after about an hour and a half, everything was over and there was a whole lot of nothing left behind. As Yahtzee Croshaw stated when talking about Everybody's Gone To the Rapture, "once you remove the fun and interactivity of The Stanley Parable, you ARE supposed to replace it with something". I simply don't think that "but it's art!!!" is an excuse for glitchy sections and overly-dragging monologues. Heavy Rain worked, The Beginner's Guide worked, but this, unfortunately, does not.

This game is weird. This game is weird. This game is really goddamn weird. It's a rhythm game where you play several instruments at the same time to experimental music as a spaceship. Did I mention this game was weird? This is the reboot of that one Harmonix series that sold about 10 copies but got several 9s and 10s across the board, something which Rock Band Blitz imitates heavily. But unlike Rock Band, this music is more electronic and experimental than a Nirvana song. You get three notes to each highway, and you shift back and forth between them. It's simple yet addictive, something which is helped by the music being ridiculously awesome. There's difficulty settings to adjust in case you're terrible, and each ship creates a different effect. Possibly the only time you'll see a 'select a character' screen actually MEAN something in a rhythm game. Overall, it's vibrant, energetic, and addictive with a killer soundtrack. And that's all a rhythm game really ever needs to be. GG, Harmonix.

It's not a replacement for the superior gameplay of the Street Fighter series, but it's as good as Mortal Kombat has ever been. Unlike MK9, MKX actually plays smoothly, has more ACTUAL combos and retains a surprisingly decent story mode. Still, pick up USF4 instead if you want pure fighting.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

Sadly, Rock Band 4 is a much better pick (as is usually the case when arguing Rock Band/Guitar Hero) as this game isn't for parties and the single-player isn't fun either. The only reason I can think of that you'd want this over Rock Band 4 is online multiplayer, but they've added microtransactions to even ruin that as well. The core gameplay was so promising, but in the end, the on-disc setlist being so lame, the fact that you can't play the songs you actually WANT on GHTV mode without paying for it and the completely broken power-ups (or Hero Powers, blah, call it Star Power or ****) make this a pretty disappointing experience. Not AWFUL, but definitively more bad than good. As I said in my Rock Band 4 review (which I recommend over this), the last gen games (Rock Band 3 and Guitar Hero: Warriors Of Rock) are both better than these ones. Get only if you're a hardcore fan - and even then, you're going to be a little disappointed.

The weakest game in the core Rock Band series is still fun for dedicated fans. Personally, I enjoy the fact that not much has changed, as Guitar Hero: Live changed practically everything... and look how well that turned out. Go for it if you have lots of DLC from Rock Band history, else skip it and pick up a cheap copy of RB3.

Ugh. Just... ugh. This is it, isn't it? This is modern gaming. Actually, what this is, is the biggest case of plagiarizing other video games since Castlevania: Lords of Shadow. All these weapons and features and mechanics are something you'd swear you'd seen in Deus Ex or Titanfall. The game is what Call Of Duty always has been: full of annoying 12 year-olds who probably can't spell the word 'campaign'. Fans will lap this up, but most will find themselves playing the online multiplayer for a weekend and never touching it again. It's shallow with nothing to offer. The campaign isn't very good either and the zombie mode is once again 'zombies but no horror'. Get some originality in your blood and come back next year, Activision!